Elphaba Lives
by CeeSixAychTwelveOhSix
Summary: SonOfAWitchverse. Hah. A continuation of the last chapter. Spoiler warnings! Don't read this if you haven't read AND FINISHED Son of a Witch.


**A/N:** So this isn't really _Wicked._ It's actually _Son of a Witch._ But there happens to be no category for SOAW fics on this lovely website as of yet, and until there is, this fic goes here. This is just a continuation of the last chapter. Spoilers for the end of the book; if you haven't read that, you won't understand this.

Liir stepped back inside and out of the rain, the baby still in his arms. _Green._ Unless Elphaba truly was alive (and male), this could only mean one thing. Well, two things. He was the father...

And Elphaba was his mother.

No wonder Candle had left the child.

Liir shook his head. No, he knew better than that. Candle wouldn't have left her baby just because she was green. She already thought that Liir was the Witch's son. And she was a Quadling; the child had been destined to be different no matter what.

The child stirred in his arms, crying slightly at the cold. Liir bent over and placed her in the basket near the fire, absently wrapping her in a blanket as he pondered what he was going to do. He supposed he should take care of the baby. It wasn't too hard; he had already proven that he knew enough to feed her the goat's milk, and he imagined that the rest of it shouldn't be too hard to pick up on. The feeding had been instinctual enough; cleaning should come just as naturally.

But a part of him was uneasy. Was he accepting that the infant was his? True, the evidence was fairly convincing. The child was green, after all. In the known history of Oz, only one other person had been born green, and that was Elphaba Thropp. And hadn't everyone in the Emerald City remarked at Liir's similarities to the Witch's siblings, Nessarose and Shell? His features bore a striking resemblance. But no one had ever compared him to Elphaba in anything other than mannerisms. And Lady Glinda herself had said that he looked nothing like Fiyero, whom he suspected would have been his father if Elphaba had been his mother. And it wasn't certain that she was. So the baby mightn't be his. Candle could have been lying to him.

Except that Candle had never lied to him. Not to his knowledge, anyway. She saved his life. He should be able to trust her.

Liir groaned and rested his head in his hands. The troubling thoughts were beginning to take their toll on him physically; a splitting pain had developed at the base of his skull and was spreading outward. More than anything, he wished that this mystery would disappear. It had caused him nothing but trouble since he was a child, living with the Witch at Kiamo Ko.

The rain fell with renewed vehemence; the sound of the water making contact with the walls and roof filled the room. Liir wondered momentarily whether Candle was safe. He knew that she, in her own strange way, was more than able to take care of herself. But he also knew that she was weak, having just had a baby. Possibly only that morning. And yet, she had left it.

Liir found himself staring at the now-sleeping infant. A newborn baby, left alone in the cold, wrapped in nothing more than a Witch's cape. Part of him wondered what kind of a mother would leave a baby the day it was born, not knowing whether it would live or not. Another part of him wondered why he was so disturbed by the thought. He'd never even had a real mother; who was he to say what was motherly and what was wrong?

Except that maybe he _had_ had a mother. Not that Elphaba had exhibited any truly motherly feelings toward him. She hadn't known how; her own parents had hated her, merely because she was green. She'd had no model to base her own actions upon.

Shaking his head, Liir turned to look out the window. His mind was conflicted; part of him wanted Elphaba to have been his mother, and part of him didn't. On the one hand, if he was her son, that meant that he could begin to define who he was. On the other hand, that also meant that he was completely unlovable. The Witch had never loved him, and if his own mother couldn't do the deed... well, then, who could? Certainly not Candle.

Liir was beginning to realize that there was a great possibility that the girl might not come back. While it was true that she wasn't particularly cruel, it was also true that she was rather independent. Or not independent, exactly; just that she couldn't be bothered to force herself to endure a difficult situation. If she thought that life was better off for her when on her own, Liir doubted she would work too hard to convince herself to return. Not when there was tension between them. Not when the only thing that awaited her was an awkward man, a hungry child, and work.

And Liir couldn't really say that he was too upset about that possibility. Sure, he would miss the girl's company. He admitted to himself that, on some level, he loved her. Just as, on some level, he loved Trism. Just as he had loved Elphaba. But not entirely in the same way. With Candle, it was more than friendship, but less than romance. With Trism... well, who was to say what it was? Passion, certainly. Attraction. That was obvious. And friendship. In fact, he found himself longing for the soldier's company more strongly than he did Candle's.

And how had he loved Elphaba? He wasn't sure. She had been the primary adult figure that he had known, besides Sarima and her nattering sisters. And Nanny. Elphaba hadn't exactly been the type of roll-model that most parents were to their children; she had mostly been the one he followed around the stronghold of Kiamo Ko, snapping at him and ordering him about. Perhaps he would have been better off trailing Nanny, or sitting at the feet of Fiyero's widow and her family.

But while those women had been more maternal in aspect, none of them had truly accepted Liir. Not even Nanny, though she had always been the one to care for him. It was simply her job, nothing more and nothing less. Watch over the brats until they could fend for themselves. It was the same for each of the children she had raised previously. No, the only one who had ever accepted Liir in any way, shape, or form was the Witch. At least Elphaba had acknowledged him, worried about him when he put himself in danger (however inadvertently), kept tabs on him...

And then there were those moments when he would catch her looking at him, studying him, as if she were trying to see something in him, some hint of who he was. Liir often saw the same look on his own face when he looked at himself in the mirror. And there had been times when she would just stop what she was doing and just watch him, an expression so full of emotion on her face that it almost hurt him to look at it. He had never really understood it when he was younger. While she was alive.

But when Elphaba had died...

Well, when she had died, Liir had felt as if he'd lost a part of himself. He'd lost the closest thing to family that he'd ever had. It had taken until she was gone for Liir to realize that he'd relied so heavily on the Witch. And now, more than a decade later, he was just beginning to learn exactly how close he and Elphaba were.

The cry of a baby drew Liir back into reality. He turned his head to look at the child. She was writhing in the basket, her tiny hands balled into fists as she wailed into the night air. Liir stood from his chair and crossed to stand in front of the baby's basket. He peered down at the infant for a moment before bending over and picking her up. He held her awkwardly away from his body, watching her squirm in his grasp, until the fear of dropping her became too much and he drew her into his chest. "Shh," he whispered uncomfortably. "Don't cry, baby. Don't cry." He slowly began to rock the child, continuing to whisper in her ear in the most soothing way he could.

In a matter of moments the infant quieted and lay in his arms, staring up at him with impossibly wide, dark eyes. Liir took the moment to inspect her; the baby's emerald green skin seemed a rich shade of brown in the firelight. The top of her head was dusted with a thin covering of black hair. Her face was actually rather similar to Liir's; her features were rounded, not sharp and pointed like Elphaba's had been. He slowly lifted one finger and began tracing the baby's features as she drifted off to sleep.

Still holding the baby, Liir moved back over to his chair. As he watched the sleeping figure in his arms, a cold realization slowly dawned on him. This baby was very much like him. She could never be certain who her father was; nor her mother, if Candle didn't return. This baby would grow up just like him.

Unless _Liir _did something about it...

This thought stopped him in his proverbial tracks. What could _he_ do? It was obvious, at least to him, that everything he tried amounted to nothing. Or almost nothing. He had sort-of been able to help Princess Nastoya, just like he had sort-of been able to get rid of the dragons. Just like he had sort-of been able to find Nor. But "sort-of" wasn't good enough when it came to raising a child. Elphaba had "sort-of" been his mother, and look how _he_ had turned out.

Then again, how had he turned out? Sure. Maybe Liir wasn't the most spectacular specimen of success. But he had at least made something out of himself. Hadn't he? He could fly on the broom. He had helped the birds, and the Vinkus tribes. In a strange way, he had even helped Trism. More importantly, he had helped himself.

Maybe he could help the baby. Give her some semblance of a normal life, at least.

Maybe he could be her father.

Liir caught himself smiling at the baby. Maybe he could do this after all. At least the baby would have a chance. Even if she _was_ green.

He brushed his thumb across the child's forehead. She was green. That could mean only one thing. "Elphaba," he whispered. "Elphaba." The baby squirmed in her sleep, as if she were signaling the acceptance of her new name.

Liir rocked his daughter slowly. "Elphaba lives."


End file.
